NEW YORK - Sales to the manufacturing market appear to have bottomed out and, hopefully, an upturn is not too far away, Epicor's CFO Michael Pietrini told attendees yesterday at the Jefferies 3rd Annual Technology Conference. "It's not getting any worse. As odd as it is, it’s a very encouraging sign," said Pietrini. "We are plodding along at the bottom trying to determine where we are." Pietrini said the mild optimism stems from discussions with the company's field sales force.

NEW YORK - Net@Work, one of Sage's largest accounting software resellers, has acquired the Sage accounting software and CRM practice of Solution Strategists, a reseller based in Cranford, N.J. Solution Strategists' owner Art Nathan said he made the sale so he could spend more time with his family.

HERNDON, Va. - Deltek has named Jim Dellamore, most recently SVP of global solutions delivery at GXS, to the position vacated on Thursday by Richard Lowenstein. Dellamore will be responsible for the strategic and operational direction of Deltek’s Global Services organization and will report to Deltek CEO Kevin Parker.

Before working at GXS, Dellamore served as group VP consulting at Oracle Corp., where he managed the PeopleSoft consulting business. Deltek, which markets financial software for project-oriented organizations, said Lowenstein's departure was not related to disagreement with senior management or with Deltek's business strategy or operating policies. Lowenstein joined Deltek as EVP of professional services in June 2006

CCH, a stalwart supplier in the traditional tax and accounting market, is pushing upward to a less-traditional area with its sales-and-use-tax systems. In announcements seven days apart, the Riverwoods, Ill.-based vendor said that CCH Sales Tax Office 2.0 has been certified by SAP for integration with SAP ERP and that it had partnered with Global Tax Management which is providing the middleware for CCH CorpSystem to enable Oracle to communicate with the CCH suite in real time.